Label:
Brille Records
Release Date:
13/03/2006

Another band, another staccato-riff opening and gang vocals: big f’ing deal. With a press release packing such wonderfully hackneyed adjectives as ‘spiky’ and ‘seminal’ and referring to both The Jam and The Buzzcocks behind it, it’s genuinely tough for the critic (hi there) to afford Good Shoes’ latest four-tracker the time of day. Tough, but not impossible – we’re professionals round here, after a fashion.

We Are Not The Same is so now it’s already yesterday’s forgotten could-have-been: lyrics are matter-of-fact a la those chirpy Monkey types that stormed Good Shoes’ potential audience months ago – vocalist Rhys Jones over-eggs his saaaf Laaahndaaahn accent to annoying effect, and his words are wrapped up in dissections of public transport workers and passengers (‘Southwest Trains’) and something about not looking stupid while dancing (‘May Lannoye’). To be perfectly honest, Jones’ vocals are so shoddy that it’s almost impossible to pick syllables out from his purposefully slurred sneer.

Good Shoes aren’t bad per se, but they’re incredibly boring – there really isn’t a single original thought to be found here, not one. “I want things to make and do,” says Jones on the closing ‘Things To Make And Do’; perhaps he should consider becoming a chippie, dropping his microphone and picking up a sheet of sandpaper, ‘cause singing in a rock band’s certainly not his forte.